happy people disgust me

originally posted by: introspectionist
a reply to: TownCryer

This is the rant forum. Don't want to read? Don't click.

Yes and his rant was directed at yours.


You say happy people disgust you

TownCryer just turned the table on you, don't like it don't reply

originally posted by: introspectionist
Every day I see them. They make up a vast majority of people. People that aren't suffering much. Everywhere happy shallow people. So meaningless. They disgust me.

Self reliance is hard work. Picking yourself up by the boot straps and staking your claim in the world is not easy but most of those happy people have done it in one way or the other. I think what you are really mad about is you don't have the drive to be a self reliant human and you cant stand those that do?

originally posted by: WhiteAlice
I am very well versed in the subjects and arguments for mind control for personal reasons. I know it's deplorable. You will never convince me that it is a good thing.

My view is that mind control isn't inherently bad, nor inherently good, it's neutral. To me all politics is mind control, basically everything is mind control. When you were in school, somebody decided what books you were going to read and what the teacher was going to talk about; that's mind control. When you turn on your TV, no matter what is broadcast, good or bad, somebody decided what was going to be broadcast and what was not going to be; that's mind control. When you're in the grocery store, somebody decided what pictures to put on the packaging. Somebody decided which products to place near the entrance and which near the exit and which in the middle of the store. Somebody decided how the traffic signs are designed.

a reply to: introspectionist

Based on that, I'd say that you and I have different definitions of mind control. I thought we were discussing "A Brave New World" where the society is popping Soma and getting their noggins recalibrated--both of which would be defined as "mind control"--not things like product positioning, education and other marketing tactics. The difference between the first and the latter is the first deprives one of their autonomy and the latter doesn't. That's a huge distinction. One can still choose to not turn on the tv or to ignore the pictures on the packaging (when does it ever look like that anyways?). Not so with actual mind control of Huxley's bent.

Attempting to influence is not the same as controlling. Marketing may be manipulation but it's not mind control. Not even close.

So under the definition of Huxley's form of mind control where your brain would get artificially recalibrated if your thinking seems faulty to those in total control and you have to pop pills all the time and not something as humdrum as a cute ad on the tele, I ask the same question again--would you be okay if it were determined that you needed to be subject to mind control of that particular flavor because "greater minds" felt it necessary? As that is precisely what those greater minds in the early 20th century were proposing to do....including Huxley.

a reply to: WhiteAlice

No, I wouldn't want to be subjected to such things. That's why I didn't take antidepressants. The thing is that most of the time they'll have people persuaded they're doing something out of their own will. And as for those things I mentioned not being real control, I think they are. We're not as free as we sometimes might think we are, because it's mostly working at a subconscious level. A lot of times we'll think our thoughts are our own when in reality they are a product of conditioning most of the time. Us thinking we're relatively free is a major part of the trick. You complain less when you think you yourself are the master.

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

a reply to: introspectionist

The whole art of the orator probably consists in his giving listeners the illusion that the convictions and feelings he arouses within them have come not from him but from themselves, that he has only divined and lent his voice to what has been worked out in their innermost consciousness. Maurice Halbwach

Favorite quote of mine but again, that only holds up if someone just follows along. Whether that orator can turn every mind towards their own is still highly subjective. Figured you might like that quote though as yes, I think there is a lot of echoing of what somebody heard said that does go on. Glad we agree on the pill popping actual mind altering type of mind control is just a NO. It is what both Huxleys got themselves involved in and some of their writings were used to suggest actual use of it on individuals.

a reply to: introspectionist

You sound like a morbid twisted evil doer. Shame on you.

Now maybe you just don't know how to word it correctly, but your emotions have taken control, it is you who is suffering.

Does somebody need a hug?

Might be a good time to watch 'Validation'...

My absolute all time favorite video on YouTube.

Is that you Victoria?

NEXT!

a reply to: WhiteAlice

While I don't want to take antidepressants myself and while I did hate all psychologists and psychiatrists, I am not sure that the psychiatrists who prescribe antidepressants are doing the wrong thing. For one thing I don't have the same amount of knowledge in the subject as they do.

But as I said earlier. I think that civilization not only couldn't exist without hierarchy, it also couldn't exist without deception and concealment of truth.

To rise in hierarchies not only intelligence of certain kinds is needed, also certain characteristics, such as being ruthless or unscrupulous. Which might also be combined with the fact that if you have high intelligence, you see a bigger picture, and sometimes doing the best for the greatest number includes dealing with some people in a not so nice way. This says something about the physical plane as a whole. Which is why I believe that the physical plane only exists to correct sin, and once that is done you leave the physical plane.

I have speculated that those who aren't ready to be initiated will take the pills. While those who are ready will be crazy enough to see through the BS, and become annoyed by listening to the psychiatrist. The annoyance can cause some people to start the initiation. And thus the psychiatrist might have a similar role as the priest in the past, he separates the flock of sheep into those who should remain among the proles and those who shouldn't. Although I have speculated if this role isn't to a large extent unconscious on the psychiatrists' part. And that all people have the same role really, just to varying degree. Groupthink. To quote The Matrix:

Sentient programs. They can move in and out of any software still hardwired to the system. That means that anyone we haven't unplugged...is potentially an agent. Inside the matrix...they are everyone...and they are no one. We have survived by hiding from them, by running from them...but they are the gatekeepers. They are guarding all the doors, they are holding all the keys, which means that sooner or later, someone is going to have to fight them. I won't lie to you, Neo. Every single man or woman who has stood their ground, everyone who has fought an agent, has died. But where they have failed, you will succeed--I've seen an agent punch through a concrete wall. Men have emptied entire clips at them and hit nothing but air. Yet their strength and their speed are still based in a world that is built on rules. Because of that...they will never be as strong or as fast as you can be.

I have to run off to work now.

Enter the darker forms of happiness.

originally posted by: WhiteAlice
One can still choose to not turn on the tv or to ignore the pictures on the packaging

What's as important as the information that enters your field of vision is the information that doesn't. You might be able to switch to another TV channel, but that one is controlled in the same way, all the channels are. And what if they all have the same owner? Another example is internet search engines such as google. What comes up in the results effects people's minds a lot, as does what doesn't come up. The opinion you never heard of will not occur to most people. And even if there are some people that are really outside the box and good at connecting dots, they're so few that they can be dealt with. Banks play a major role. And there are mechanisms of sanctions applied to anything that doesn't fall in line with what those in power want to distribute. If a country doesn't want to have a central bank, it gets invaded. The people in North Korea might live in a bubble, unaware of the outer world, but so do we. "Free society", sounds like an oxymoron to me.

There is a history of the world of which most people are unaware. It is encapsulated in the phrase, “History is written by the victors.” What about those who lost? Their stories are lost in the tales of the winners. They are notes in the margin. They are “Other”. Often, little is known about them beyond the slanders and libels their successful enemies levelled at them. History doesn’t record their voices. Often, they left no written documents, or at least none that survived the destruction wrought by their enemies. This lost history doesn’t concern wars between great nations or famous battles involving powerful kings or the most skilled generals. Instead, it is a struggle of the powerless against the powerful, of minorities against majorities, outsiders versus insiders, oppressed against the oppressors, have-nots against haves, those with nothing against those with everything, the margins of society versus the establishment. In the vast majority of cases, the establishment is triumphant. Often, the minorities – the heretics, the rebels, the revolutionaries, the members of the resistance, the freedom fighters, those leading alternative lives, the anti-establishment, those who won’t bow to tyrants – are destroyed and exterminated. They are usually labelled mad, evil and dangerous and their terrible fate is held up as a warning to those who might follow the same path. “Do not be like them or you will suffer the same consequences,” is the message.

armageddonconspiracy.co.uk...

The freedom that people talk about is worth about as much as the rights that are talked about here:

A distinguishing feature of Gnosticism is an illusive, symbolic interpretation of reality, including history.

Dearest friend, do you not see
All that we perceive –
Only reflects and shadows forth
What our eyes cannot see.
Dearest friend, do you not hear
In the clamour of everyday life –
Only the unstrung echoing fall of
Jubilant harmonies.

www.gnostics.com...

Rumi has nothing but pity and disdain for those who look at the world around and within themselves and do not understand that what they are seeing is a veil over reality. The world is a dream, a prison, a trap, foam thrown up from the ocean, dust kicked up by a passing horse. But it is not what it appears to be. If everything that appears to us were just as it appears, the Prophet, who was endowed with such penetrating vision, both illuminated and illuminating, would never have cried out, "Oh Lord, show us things as they are!" Rumi draws a fundamental distinction between "form" (surat) and "meaning" (ma`na). Form is a thing's outward appearance, meaning its inward and unseen reality.

The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi, William C. Chittick

originally posted by: introspectionist
Optimism is a mental disorder.

...and...disgust is not?

Å99

We're all both subjected to mind control and are ourselves mind controlling. When you write a post on this forum, the readers' minds are affected, so you're mind controlling them. And then they write something that affects your mind, they're mind controlling you. I remember that Jan Irvin talked about this on Red Ice Radio.

originally posted by: introspectionist
We're all both subjected to mind control and are ourselves mind controlling. When you write a post on this forum, the readers' minds are affected, so you're mind controlling them. And then they write something that affects your mind, they're mind controlling you. I remember that Jan Irvin talked about this on Red Ice Radio.

Jan Irvin 'mind controlled' you into believing this...

How do you spell Confirmation Bias?

Å99

a reply to: introspectionist

Or you can opt to not watch at all. I'm one of those crazies who has had a heavy disdain for most television programming for my entire life. I also choose not to use google for the majority of my searches because they, through the process of trying to "give the people what they want", ended up really screwing up their search algorithm along with privacy issues. I choose, instead, to use DuckDuckGo.

That's what I mean about the difference between influencing and actual mind control is being that ability to make choices for oneself. Influencing does not disrupt one's ability to make choices. Mind control trumps that choice making before the ability to make a choice occurs. Some do actually chose to live differently but if you're regarding the total human population as being prone to the same predilections and false choices based on their appearances of being happy, you're deluding yourself. Like I said, if you saw me in a store, you'd be painting me with that same brush when I am not what you think at all. (I certainly hope that you figured that out by now in how much I actually know and have learned). This isn't necessarily deliberately done by anyone but just is the nature of living within a society.

History is absolutely written by the victors and that awareness is not as uncommon as you think. I had a world history class about 20 years ago where the professor opened the class with that statement. I think that the awareness is there for many but perhaps not the interest in sussing out what gets omitted and what doesn't. It's not easy being someone who chooses to go against the proverbial grain. I may not get eyed so peculiarly because I don't use google but man, the looks I have received for not watching tv is a whole other matter. The human tendency is to generally try to fit in within society. Difference is regarded with almost xenophobia. I guarantee that people have those sets of behaviors that they are willing to show to the public that they feel are "socially acceptable" in order to fit in but also have their own individual quirks that they keep to themselves for fear of being cast out from society.

Do talking heads set the status quo? Probably and some do sink right in. Or at least seem to. As someone who was born on the outside to begin with, I've studied people, their interactions and behaviors for a very, very long time. What's on the surface does not always jibe with what's on the inside and the tendency is that, the more at risk that they may feel, the more likely they are to hide those things that are counter to that status quo. It's kind of like when I was expressing distress to my mother about the violence that I was seeing being directed at peaceful protesters a few years ago. My usually bubbly and all about appearances mother's voice got all husky with emotion when she whispered that she knew and simply said "Kent State". It surprised me and she was my own mother.

Hopefully this gives you a little more food for thought.

originally posted by: WhiteAlice

History is absolutely written by the victors and that awareness is not as uncommon as you think.

"History" isn't just about the distant past, what happened 2 hours ago is already history. By saying on one hand that yes history is written by the victors and on the other hand that you are exempted, you are free, you don't seem to get my point. My whole point is that people like you think they're free as birds because they can choose duckduckgo instead of google, when in reality they're in a glass prison. We're all caged, and those who think they aren't are the most hopelessly caged. When it's the information of our enemy we call it propaganda or brainwashing, when it's our own information we call it simply information or education.

Just my view. You're entitled to yours.

ETA:

This documentary may or may not be good but it serves to illustrate my point:

originally posted by: WhiteAlice
Do talking heads set the status quo? Probably and some do sink right in. Or at least seem to. As someone who was born on the outside to begin with, I've studied people, their interactions and behaviors for a very, very long time. What's on the surface does not always jibe with what's on the inside and the tendency is that, the more at risk that they may feel, the more likely they are to hide those things that are counter to that status quo. It's kind of like when I was expressing distress to my mother about the violence that I was seeing being directed at peaceful protesters a few years ago. My usually bubbly and all about appearances mother's voice got all husky with emotion when she whispered that she knew and simply said "Kent State". It surprised me and she was my own mother.

That's nicely put and indeed food for thought. I do agree to some extent. However, I think that people cannot keep it to themselves altogether. It shows in for example how relaxed/extrovert vs stiff/neurotic/introvert someone is. You can see when people are in harmony with their environment and when they are walking on glass to some extent, at least that's my view.

a reply to: introspectionist

As an introvert myself, I am deeply offended at being called stiff and neurotic as well.

lol, just kidding. Maybe it's because I was raised in a military family where appearances are everything, I don't stand out quite like that. I am introvert that has been trained to emulate an extrovert in public settings. I think that may be why I concede more to the people I see walking around when I'm out and about. I know that I'm very deceptive and unrevealing when I'm in public as I'm hiding behind a mask. However, some just don't bother or are unable to do the same and yes, those stand out a bit.

My whole point is that people like you think they're free as birds because they can choose duckduckgo instead of google, when in reality they're in a glass prison.

In relation to your previous post, don't presume that one thing relates to another thing. That is a formal fallacy and a flaw in inductive reasoning. You basically said:

WhiteAlice uses DuckDuckGo; therefore, she because she uses DuckDuckGo, thinks she's free.

If A, then A means B.

The information you used (premise) was not substantial enough to warrant your conclusion. What I was referencing was the ability to choose the opposite of the items you mentioned. There is a substantial difference between the ability to make choices and whether or not one thinks they are free. To counter your fallacy, one can go to the store and believe that they have a number of food companies to choose from based on the sheer number of brands on the shelves. However, that is just an illusion of choice as all of those brands are made by perhaps just 5-6 companies. I still can choose what I want to eat but my choices which would seem deceptively robust are actually limited. If I chose to not purchase foods from one of those major companies, well, then I wouldn't have many alternatives.

You really do need to stop that because it is terrible assumptive and presumptive. You don't know me. You know nothing about me. However, I did say a few pages ago that I was brainwashed via a neuroscientist by my mother--essentially an attempt at doing the Huxley type of mind control. How free do you really think I feel if my volition on a specific thing is substantially trumped?

Stop with the you statements and start seeing the individuals before you. You do NOT know them and do not ever presume you do. That is fallacious and is not a sign of any improved intellectual reasoning on your part. Fallacies and faulty inductions are not good things. Do better.

a reply to: introspectionist

One more thing, I went to East Germany a long time ago where, when the soldiers carrying large guns mounted the bus to check our passports, we were cautioned to hold them before us and look straight ahead with the blankest of expressions we could muster for fear of being arrested or detained. In East Berlin, there were overt cameras on every street corner along with those same soldiers with those same guns patrolling everywhere I could see. When I was in the USSR, I encountered people fearful to even look at us because we were Americans (not the black marketeers though). I spoke with a young girl who told me how one of her neighbors was sent to the Gulag for saying something against the government and how she'd been robbed yet didn't call the police for fear that the same would happen to her because they'd find something about her that they arbitrarily didn't like. Where the newspapers only ever produced stories that were extremely positive on the subject of the government and most of the churches were whitewashed and filled with state propaganda. That state propaganda was everywhere. And for our tour bus supposed to be viewing Mockba--Moscow--we went round and round and round for hours, viewing the same things over and over again while our Soviet state tour guide pretended it was totally normal. They only detoured after we started remarking on how the same workers on the scaffolding of one of the buildings were still sitting, not working. They took us back to the hotel. And in the stores, you had only one choice for the majority of things. One comb to choose from, one soap, one type of toilet paper. That is what a truly restrictive country looks like.

There is no place on this planet that one is truly free unless you find a small deserted island. In most of the world, you are always subject to the government that is in control and it's rules and regulations. So absolute freedom does not exist really--not in any civil society at least. However, the differences between countries and their levels of freedom can be immensely varied. No one in their right mind would attribute the countries of E. Germany and the USSR were free and comparatively, while the US is better than both of those by a landslide, it's poorer in the qualities of freedom than other countries (ie Norway or Finland). That's just the way it rolls.

I did not draw the conclusion that you think you're free in that particular way you suggested above. And my point didn't reach to you. I'll stop trying now.